Updated on July 27, 2018, at 4:19 p.m. ET
Posted on July 26, 2018, at 1:37 p.m. ET

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Lawmakers representing communities of color are requesting a meeting with Amazon after a report by the American Civil Liberties Union revealed Thursday that the company's controversial facial recognition tool Rekognition falsely matched 28 members of US Congress with mugshots in its database. And on Friday, the letter was signed by 23 more members of Congress, including Virginia Rep. Tom Garrett, a Republican, making the lawmakers' demand to meet with Amazon officially a bipartisan effort.

“The potential for this technology to wreak havoc on people of color cannot be understated,” said Rep. Gomez. “It’s time for Mr. Bezos to recognize the role his company plays in this situation and to accept our bipartisan invitation to discuss these concerns and the impacts such technology can have on our constituents when put in the hands of law enforcement officials.”

Separately, Sen. Edward Markey and Reps. Luis Gutiérrez and Mark DeSaulnier also sent a letter expressing their concern and asking for more information about Amazon's facial recognition services.

Then in a new letter shared with BuzzFeed News Friday morning, U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden, Cory Booker, and Ed Markey sought details from 39 law-enforcement agencies about their use of facial recognition technology and what policies they have put in place to prevent abuse and misuse.

The two co-leads of the original letter, Reps. Gomez and Lewis, are from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus; both were falsely matched to mugshots in the ACLU's test of Amazon Rekognition. According to the ACLU's test of Amazon Rekognition technology, nearly 40 percent of false matches were people of color, even though they make up only 20 percent of Congress.

Sen. Edward Markey and Reps. Luis Gutiérrez and Mark DeSaulnier, meanwhile, asked Amazon to answer their questions about Amazon Rekognition and its sale to law enforcement by Aug. 20. "Serious concerns have been raised about the dangers facial recognition can pose to privacy and civil rights, especially when it is a tool of government surveillance, as well as accuracy of the technology and its disproportionate impact on communities of color," their letter stated.

Among the details Markey, Gutiérrez, and DeSaulnier sought: a bias assessment that Amazon has conducted on Rekognition; a list of law enforcement that Amazon has contacted or communicated with over the use of Rekognition; and whether those law enforcement agencies have ever been investigated.

Amazon, for its part, has said Rekognition has been used in the past for many useful purposes, including finding missing children, enhancing security, and preventing package theft. "We remain excited about how image and video analysis can be a driver for good in the world, including in the public sector and law enforcement," an Amazon Web Services spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in an earlier statement.

But Jeff Bezos has yet to make a public statement to mounting criticisms of Amazon's Rekognition technology by Amazon employees, shareholders, and civil rights groups. In May, the ACLU reported that Amazon had been pitching Rekognition to law enforcement agencies to surveil citizens, and that Oregon's Washington County and Orlando had been using it since 2017. The report spurred a petition to the Amazon CEO, asking him to end the contracts with police. Now, Bezos also needs to decide whether he will indeed meet with members of Congress asking for a meeting to express concerns over the facial recognition technology.

Beyond asking for time with Amazon's CEO, Gomez and Lewis ask Bezos in their letter to ensure that developers of tech like Amazon Rekognition include testing and regular consultation with "diverse stakeholders" — especially civil rights experts and advocates.

"Data software excels at finding patterns and aggregating data, but those programs have yet to prove they can accurately analyze the context around the information itcollects," the letter stated. "This can and has led to irretrievable harm to innocent persons’ livelihoods; a cost that is too high to ignore."

UPDATE

Jul 27, 2018, 4:29:02 PM GMT

Information about a new letter written by US Sens. Ron Wyden, Cory Booker, and Ed Markey, asking law enforcement agencies about their use of facial recognition technology, was added to this piece.

UPDATE

Jul 27, 2018, 8:19:41 PM GMT

This story has been updated to note that the original letter from lawmakers demanding to meet with Amazon was signed by 23 more members of Congress and has become a bipartisan effort.

Share on Twitter
Share on Twitter
Twitter
Share on Facebook
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Share on System
Share on System
System

We value your privacy

We and our partners use technology such as cookies on our site to personalize content and ads, provide social media features, and analyze our traffic. Click below to consent to the use of this technology across the web. You can change your mind and change your consent choices at anytime by returning to this site.

BuzzFeed

Information storage and access

The storage of information, or access to information that is already stored, on your device such as advertising identifiers, device identifiers, cookies, and similar technologies.

Personalisation

The collection and processing of information about your use of this service to subsequently personalise advertising and/or content for you in other contexts, such as on other websites or apps, over time. Typically, the content of the site or app is used to make inferences about your interests, which inform future selection of advertising and/or content.

Ad selection, delivery, reporting

The collection of information, and combination with previously collected information, to select and deliver advertisements for you, and to measure the delivery and effectiveness of such advertisements. This includes using previously collected information about your interests to select ads, processing data about what advertisements were shown, how often they were shown, when and where they were shown, and whether you took any action related to the advertisement, including for example clicking an ad or making a purchase. This does not include personalisation, which is the collection and processing of information about your use of this service to subsequently personalise advertising and/or content for you in other contexts, such as websites or apps, over time.

Content selection, delivery, reporting

The collection of information, and combination with previously collected information, to select and deliver content for you, and to measure the delivery and effectiveness of such content. This includes using previously collected information about your interests to select content, processing data about what content was shown, how often or how long it was shown, when and where it was shown, and whether the you took any action related to the content, including for example clicking on content. This does not include personalisation, which is the collection and processing of information about your use of this service to subsequently personalise content and/or advertising for you in other contexts, such as websites or apps, over time.

Third-party vendors

Information storage and access

The storage of information, or access to information that is already stored, on your device such as advertising identifiers, device identifiers, cookies, and similar technologies.

View CompaniesHide Companies

Company

Lotame Solutions, Inc.

OpenX Software Ltd. and its affiliates

The Rubicon Project, Limited

Index Exchange, Inc.

comScore, Inc.

DoubleVerify Inc.​

LiveRamp, Inc.

Taboola Europe Limited

PubMatic, Inc.

Outbrain UK Ltd

EMX Digital LLC

Nielsen Marketing Cloud

Google (DFP / AdX)

Personalisation

The collection and processing of information about your use of this service to subsequently personalise advertising and/or content for you in other contexts, such as on other websites or apps, over time. Typically, the content of the site or app is used to make inferences about your interests, which inform future selection of advertising and/or content.

View CompaniesHide Companies

Company

Lotame Solutions, Inc.

OpenX Software Ltd. and its affiliates

LiveRamp, Inc.

Outbrain UK Ltd

EMX Digital LLC

Nielsen Marketing Cloud

Google (DFP / AdX)

Ad selection, delivery, reporting

The collection of information, and combination with previously collected information, to select and deliver advertisements for you, and to measure the delivery and effectiveness of such advertisements. This includes using previously collected information about your interests to select ads, processing data about what advertisements were shown, how often they were shown, when and where they were shown, and whether you took any action related to the advertisement, including for example clicking an ad or making a purchase. This does not include personalisation, which is the collection and processing of information about your use of this service to subsequently personalise advertising and/or content for you in other contexts, such as websites or apps, over time.

View CompaniesHide Companies

Company

Lotame Solutions, Inc.

OpenX Software Ltd. and its affiliates

LiveRamp, Inc.

Outbrain UK Ltd

Google (DFP / AdX)

Content selection, delivery, reporting

The collection of information, and combination with previously collected information, to select and deliver content for you, and to measure the delivery and effectiveness of such content. This includes using previously collected information about your interests to select content, processing data about what content was shown, how often or how long it was shown, when and where it was shown, and whether the you took any action related to the content, including for example clicking on content. This does not include personalisation, which is the collection and processing of information about your use of this service to subsequently personalise content and/or advertising for you in other contexts, such as websites or apps, over time.

View CompaniesHide Companies

Company

Lotame Solutions, Inc.

LiveRamp, Inc.

Google (DFP / AdX)

Measurement

The collection of information about your use of the content, and combination with previously collected information, used to measure, understand, and report on your usage of the service. This does not include personalisation, the collection of information about your use of this service to subsequently personalise content and/or advertising for you in other contexts, i.e. on other service, such as websites or apps, over time.